From the fine print department…

An alert reader forwarded a page from a change-of-terms notice he recently received from Mastercard. He noticed that Mastercard was charging a 3 percent fee, which they call a finance charge, on all foreign purchases. He hadn’t been aware of this charge, although it’s one that is becoming popular in the fee-happy world of card issuers.

What I found even more outrageous, though, was Mastercard’s explanation. In an email to the alert reader, Mastercard had this to say:

Please be informed, this is not a new fee; however, the fee was previously added into transaction amount rather than appearing as a Separate line item on the statement.

We are changing the way you will be charged for a foreign transaction. A Foreign Transaction Fee Finance Charge will apply to transactions made in a foreign currency. Your billing statement will list the transactions separately from the Foreign Transaction Fee Finance Charges.

In other words, we’ve been socking you with this fee for a while, and you probably didn’t notice because we hid it in the currency conversion. Now, we’re going to show you how we’re sticking it to you.

Well, I’m a big believer in transparency for just about everything except Michael Moore’s shower, so I guess the MCard folks deserve credit for owning up. But the fee itself is just one more example of how credit card issuers fleece their customers. For 3 percent, I’d take my chances with the local money changers.

Given the fees and finance charges they now sock customers with, Mastercard should think about reverting to its old Master Charge name. They have, after all, mastered the art of the charge.